Huffington Post - Feeding Animals Antibiotics: Not Helping U.S. Meat Export

By David Wallinga, M.D.
January 21, 2011

"Data finally released last month by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) do little to allay those fears, while confirming the findings of a decade-old report from the Union of Concerned Scientists: More than 70 percent (74 percent, in fact) of all U.S. antibiotics are being used in food-producing animals. Most of our 'medically important' antibiotics, like penicillins, tetracyclines and erythromycins, are used in animals, not people. And, nearly all of these are routine uses in feed for animals that are not clinically sick. Rather than to treat disease, these antibiotics are used for growth promotion or to avert sickness in animals that are stressed from the confined conditions in which they are raised..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-wallinga-md/feeing-animals-antibiotics_b_810669.html